Time Machine Stuck at "Backing up XXmb of XXgb"

For a week now, time machine gets stuck at "Backing up 901.8MB of 29.14GB." I can let it run all day and it wilPre backup directory and delete the inProgress file, and eject the drive. The next day, it happens all over again. I haven't had a successful backup in six days.
What can I do about this?

jayb3369 wrote:
Yeah, that was one of the first things I tried. Neither disk has any problems that Repair Disk could find or repair. Still not working. Today it's stuck at "Backing up 86 MB of 88.1 MB" for about four hours now.
Is there a Time Machine log that shows what files have been backed up? That might yield some insight.
No, unfortunately. There are a couple of 3rd-party apps that show what was backed-up, but only for successful backups.
A clue might be lurking in your logs. See #A1 in Time Machine - Troubleshooting. The widget messages probably won't have anything, but see the pink box to look in your system.log, but without filtering for backupd. There may be some other messages sent by other processes during the backup.
You might be able to figure out what's hanging it by excluding things. Or, look inside the in.Progress package.

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Time Machine stuck at "Backing up 56 bytes of 142.73 GB"

I am backing up one of our computers using Time Machine to a share on a DroboFS. It's been working fine for a while, but for the last few days, it doesn't seem to me completing the backup even if left on its own for the night. Any suggestions? I couldn't find anything specific from searching. I am trying out a second Time Machine formatted share, but want to figure out what could be wrong here.
Thanks

I'm having the same problem. Also see page 27 reply on this blogpost by myself:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/15662400#15662400
Even though it is not "stuck", it is working at one KB to another....seems like it is backing up about 1mb/hour. Roughly.
The log says:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/MBP Backup/Backups.backupdb
706.02 GB required (including padding), 1.74 TB available
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
I think that's exactly the problem - the index. I installed Finale and some complementary software which unzipped gazillions of files. I think Mac is overloaded with the mass amount of files? Yet....that is almost ridiculous to put the mac in a mb/hr position...
I am using Thunderbolt external HDs and the backup is taking place in less than a KB/S speed. Not exaggerating! Currently it says 1'997 days and it is at 9,4mb since at least the last few minutes. The full backup has been initiated this afternoon - meaning some 6hours ago. That's about 1mb/hour.
something's going quite wrong here.
Anyone know what to do?
thanks
Jeff

Time Machine stuck while backing up

Time machine has worked fine since I set it up, but now it has not finished a backup since 4/16. Time Machine just sits there and says Backing Up: 4KB of 9.1GB. I have left it on for days and it never gets past this point. I have done some of the suggestions here. Turned off spotlight on the backup disk, ran disk Utility (with no issues), Repaired Permissions, I deselected my backup disk and then reselected it in Time Machine, and I do not have set the HD to go to sleep. I have download the Time Machine Buddy widget and this is what is says currently:
Starting standard backup
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://David%[email protected]/Backup
Backup destination mounted at path: /Volumes/Backup-1
Disk image /Volumes/Backup-1/David Grayson’s iMac_001ec214f4f7.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of David Grayson’s iMac
Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of David Grayson’s iMac/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Waiting for index to be ready (905 > 0)
Waiting for index to be ready (905 > 0)
Waiting for index to be ready (905 > 0)
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:kFSEDBEventFlagMustScanSubDirs|kFSEDBEventFlagReasonEventDBUntrustable|
No pre-backup thinning needed: 12.40 GB requested (including padding), 58.98 GB available
Several previous messages say:
Starting standard backup
Backup destination alias resolved to path: /Volumes/Backup
Disk image /Volumes/Backup/David Grayson’s iMac_001ec214f4f7.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Backup of David Grayson’s iMac
Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup of David Grayson’s iMac/Backups.backupdb
No pre-backup thinning needed: 12.36 GB requested (including padding), 59.31 GB available
Stopping backupd to allow ejection of backup destination disk!
I think the last line is there when I shutdown the computer.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
David

Well I am not sure what I did (one log from Time Machine Buddy did mention having problems with a Logitech app, so I deleted it) but the backup worked last night. FYI, I did not run Disk Utility on the Backup Disk.
Thanks anyway.
David

Time machine is not backing up - starts to, then stops. No error.

Time machine has stopped backing up. I have plenty of space on the external drive. When starting a backup, whether automatically or manually, the process will begin, and may even get to the backing up stage, then stop. No error message, but no backup either. This has been going on for 12 days, and I hadn't noticed as the icon at the top of the screen was not showing a backup issue.
I have checked and repaired permissions, and the external disk. There were a few issues, but they have been corrected. Still no luck.

Okay,
I ran the widget, and here are the results. The backup never got to actually backing up, it got stuck on "cleaning up". After 5 minutes, I hit stop backup up, and it was stuck on that till I restarted.
Starting standard backup
Error loading /Library/Plug-ins/DiskImages/NUMPlugin.bundle/Contents/MacOS/NUMPlugin: dlopen(/Library/Plug-ins/DiskImages/NUMPlugin.bundle/Contents/MacOS/NUMPlugin, 262): no suitable image found. Did find:\n /Library/Plug-ins/DiskImages/NUMPlugin.bundle/Contents/MacOS/NUMPlugin: mach-o, but wrong architecture
Cannot find function pointer VRPreviewCFPlugInFactory for factory 20D1C6B2-6A02-11D7-B5A6-000393D45566 in CFBundle/CFPlugIn 0x105937f30 </Library/Plug-ins/DiskImages/NUMPlugin.bundle> (bundle, not loaded)
Backing up to: /Volumes/Backup/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume: Macintosh HD
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Node requires deep traversal:/ reason:must scan subdirs|new event db|

Time Capsule / Time Machine stuck on 'calculating changes'

Time Machine has not backed up to my Time Capsule for the last several weeks on my MacBook Pro. It is constantly stuck on 'calculating changes' for hours. I have tried other suggestions I have found in the forum like verify and repair disc on both my internal HDD and on the time capsule drive. No errors were found on either drive. I normally backup via wifi and I have also tried plugging directly into the time capsule with an ethernet cord. It doesn't make any difference either with wifi or ethernet.
The time capsule drive is full, but I just assumed that Time Machine would erase the oldest backups and continue. I don't know if this is an issue with the problem I am having. I downloaded the time machine widget as suggested in other posts on this topic, the log is posted below. There are errors about the disc being full and an error writing to the backup log. I don't know why it can't right to the log or what could be wrong. After looking at the logs, it appears that what is shown below just continues to repeat about every two hours (time machine seems to give up after about 2 hours and starts over again with the same result).
I am thinking of erasing the time capsule disc and trying to start over, but would like to figure why this has happened before I erase the disc. I am also worried about erasing my only backups, even if they are three weeks old. Entering time machines still seems to give me all of my older backups like nothing is wrong, but I haven't restored from one so they may not work if I tried.
Any help would or insight into this would be greatly appreciated.
Starting standard backup
Attempting to mount network destination using URL: afp://Kason%[email protected]/Data
Mounted network destination using URL: afp://Kason%[email protected]/Data
QUICKCHECK ONLY; FILESYSTEM CLEAN
Disk image /Volumes/Data/MacBook Pro.sparsebundle mounted at: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine Backups/Backups.backupdb
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:* -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: No space left on device
Exception writing exclusions cache. NSFileHandleOperationException:* -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: No space left on device
Unable to create exclusions cache data.
Failed to write exclusions cache. Continuing anyway.
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:* -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: No space left on device
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:* -[NSConcreteFileHandl

jaxx323 wrote:
The time capsule drive is full, but I just assumed that Time Machine would erase the oldest backups and continue.
Ordinarily it will. Do you have other data on the drive? If so, it appears that other data has completely filled the drive, so much so that Time Machine can't even start the hidden log it keeps there.
Error writing to backup log. NSFileHandleOperationException:* -[NSConcreteFileHandle writeData:]: No space left on device
Usually when that happens, the backup crashes.
First, cancel the backup. If it won't cancel after a few moments, see #D6 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html].
Then connect via an Ethernet cable if at all possible. Time Machine needs to do some intensive work, and it will be slow even via Ethernet, but 2-3 times slower via WIFI.
If there's other stuff on the drive, you could copy some of it elsewhere temporary and delete it. You only need to free up 50 MB or so.
But your best bet is to delete your oldest backup(s), then "compact" the sparse bundle they're in, to make some space. See #12 of [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html].
Since it's been several weeks, you may want to delete roughly one old backup for each of those weeks, then "compact" the sparse bundle. If you only delete one, then Time Machine will have to delete more, but it will delete one, dismount the sparse bundle, compact it, then remount it to see if there's enough room. That gets repeated over and over until there's enough space.
Once this is sorted out, if there is other stuff on your TC's internal HD, see #Q3 in [Using Time Machine with a Time Capsule|http://web.me.com/pondini/TimeMachine/TimeCapsule.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Time Machine is not backing up...

Hi, I have a 27" iMac (mid-2011) and now Time Machine is not backing up. Actually I had turned it off, then forgot about it...so it was off for about 2 months. I read on some of these forums, when you do that...TIme Machine can be stuck in the "Preparing to Back up" phase for quite some time. To just let it go and it would be fine. But after several days, I have given up. It has not backed up in over a week now. Just spinning "Preparing to Back Up" only. Any suggestions what I should do? I have OS X Lion (10.7.3) and using a external HDD connected via USB (NOT Time Capsule).

Hi again Linc Davis,
I tried the "backupd" in the ALL MESSAGES under system log queries, and did manage to see:
18/3/12 8:48:31.277 PM mdworker: (Normal) Import: Using too many resources after 66432 files (wired: 0 resident: 19957 swapped: 2 regions: 2037), hit usage threshold importing /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Xxxx Xxxxxxの iMac/2012-01-15-141532/Macintosh HD/Users/xxxxxxxxxx/Library/Mail/V2/[email protected]/[Gmail].mbox/All Mail.mbox/84784BFD-487D-40BC-AC16-A441D3A8F331/Data/6/1/Messages/16497.4.emlxpa rt, exiting to clean up now.
18/3/12 8:53:20.761 PM mdworker: (Normal) Import: Using too many resources after 40576 files (wired: 0 resident: 20389 swapped: 2 regions: 2011), hit usage threshold importing /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Xxxx Xxxxxx の iMac/2011-12-29-001513/Macintosh HD/Users/xxxxxxxxxx/Library/Mail/V2/[email protected]/Japan.mbox/84784BFD-487D-40BC-AC16-A441D3A8F331/Data/1/1/1/Messages/111994.emlx , exiting to clean up now.
18/3/12 9:05:36.840 PM mdworker: (Normal) Import: Using too many resources after 36480 files (wired: 0 resident: 19529 swapped: 2 regions: 2019), hit usage threshold importing /Volumes/Time Machine/Backups.backupdb/Xxxx Xxxxxx の iMac/2012-01-13-001459/Macintosh HD/Users/xxxxxxxxxx/Library/Mail/V2/[email protected]/Sayang.mbox/84784BFD-487D-40BC-AC16-A441D3A8F331/Data/1/3/1/Messages/131667.par tial.emlx, exiting to clean up now.
Does this help? Thanks again!

Time machine stuck on 'caculating changes'

I upgraded to snow leopard with no problems except that I can't get a time machine backup completed. The message is stuck on 'calculating changes'. I have done a reset of time machine etc. but no luck so far. Any advice? Message in my time machine widget is:
Backing up to: /Volumes/Ivisonbackup/Backups.backupdb
Event store UUIDs don't match for volume:....
Waiting for index to be ready (101)
etc.
Thanks

Hi, and welcome to the forums.
What's the "etc." ?
If it's more of the "Waiting for index . . ." messages, that's likely a problem with your TM volume, or communicating with it.
Start by repairing your backups, per #A5 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of the +Time Machine+ forum).
If that doesn't help, post back with details, including all the messages, your setup (especially the destination for the backups), what you've done, and the results.
Message was edited by: Pondini

I'm running Pages version 5.2 on a Desktop Mac version 10.9.2. with the Pages app open how do I use the Time Machine to go back five hours to see the work?

I'm running Pages version 5.2 on a Desktop Mac version 10.9.2. With the Pages app open how do I use the Time Machine to go back five hours to see my page? Can I access Time Machine within an app like Pages? How do I enter Time Machine within the application? It always takes me to the Finder. I apolgise for the mumbo jumbo. I simply do not know how to use Time Machine. It makes sense when I follow the Tutorial but then I lose it.

OK. You've kind of skipped over the reason why you want to go back five hours, but my assumption would be that you've made changes to a Pages file that you want to revert.
There are two ways to tackle this. From Pages itself, open the current version of your document, and from the File menu, click Revert To, and Browse All Versions. You'll then be in the Time Machine interface for that file, and can browse back to the version you want.
Or, outside of Pages, you can select the file (or the folder it was originally in, if you've since deleted it) and enter Time Machine from the TM menu (it sounds like you've already tried this?)
best
Matt

Having downloaded Mavericks to my IMac I now find Time Machine couldn't back up to the Time Machine HDD. I am using a WD 1TB independent Hard drive

Having downloaded Mavericks to my IMac two weeks ago, I now find Time Machine couldn't back up to the Time Machine HDD. I am using a WD 1TB External Hard drive. I understand that a number of people have lost data since installing Mavericks on their Western Digital external drives. Has anyone any futher info. Or is there a better way of backing up my computer. Thanks. Lee

Check the More Like This section at the right particularly i upgraded my imac hard drive to a 2tb drive. how do i use time machine to get my computer back to normal?

Time MAchine won't back up due to not enough space, but there is

TIme Machine won't back up. Displays this:
Actual capacity of the external backup drive is 999.68 GB and available is 135 gb .
The imac internal HD capacity is 999.01GB and used space is 636.321 GB.
This problem has occured periodically in the last 12 months or so, so prior to OS version10.8 install in Jul 2012.
I previously called AppleCare, as I have a contract, and tech said I just need to reformat the external drive and start over.
I did that the last time this happened a few months ago, but I don't like that option, as it eliminates all the prior backups,
What if I needed to try to recover something I deleted 3 weeks ago, for example. I couldn't do so as all backups would have been deleted, of course, by me having refomatted the drive and basically starting over. Also, I noted in another post about a person having a problem due to using a partitioned drive. Mine is not partition, as far as I can tell. See this:
Any ideas? Thanks

The solution is essentially "simple." You need a larger hard drive for these backups or you need to use a different backup solution. By this I mean using backup software that does not preserve an archive of old copies of a file, but simply erases old copies in order to replace them with the new copies. By replacing your backup drive can always accommodate the drive it backs up if it is large enough - say the same size. I can suggest:
Backup Software Recommendations
Carbon Copy Cloner
Data Backup
Deja Vu
SuperDuper!
Synk Pro
Tri-Backup
Others may be found at VersionTracker or MacUpdate.
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQ on backup and restore. Also read How to Back Up and Restore Your Files.
All of the above are capable of being scheduled. Synk Pro makes immediate backups of any changed file on the hard drive. You may configure it to archive changes (like Time Machine) or to delete prior copies.

Time machine won't back up

I just got a new MacBook Air with Lion. On my old Mac, I thought I remembered that Time Machine would only backup files that have changed since the last time I backed up my drive. I used Time Machine to transfer my old desktop to my new Air. Today when I tried to use TIme Machine to back it up, it said I did not have enough space.
I'm not clear if it's trying to back up the whole drive or just things that have changed since the install (which is all I need).
What should I do to make more room for my current back up or to instruct Time Machine only to back up items that have changed since the last backup?
Thanks.

FWIW I had this sort of problem which generally #$%^& me off. I had a brainstorm and tried somebody's MBP and it worked just as expected. So I reinstalled Leopard after erasing and formating the drive and using time machine off my external LaCie.
That didn't work worth a #$%^&
So I once again, reformatted the drive and reinstalled leopard FROM THE DVD and then used time machine as part of the migration assistant, and everything worked perfectly, and I can now use TC with my Mac Pro octo.
So something MIGHT be hosed on your system, and if you feel that you have a solid back up, reinstall off the DVD and then migrate with time machine.
Hope this helps. I spent about 2 days getting this straightened out.

Time Machine won't back up after system restore

I just restored my system after a failure, and now Time Machine won't back up my hard drive. It gets about 40 out of 90 Gigabytes done, and then gives me an error message that just says that there was an error while backing up, and doesn't give any other information. I ran a Verify Disk with Disk Utility, and there is nothing wrong with the backup drive, and there is more than 200 Gigabytes of space left on that drive.
Thank You.

zhoffmanster wrote:
Ok, so here's the thing: I tried backing up again today, and it worked just fine. Before, what would happen is a message would pop saying "an error has occurred during backup" (or something close to that). The point is, the message didn't give any detail.
No, the point is, you seem to have ignored this:
See the Time Machine - Troubleshooting post at the top of this forum.

Time Machine won't back up to drive. Five days backing up so far

A week ago I got a message saying that Time Machine could not back up to my external hard drive but that I could access my old backups. I pointed Time Machine to another hard drive and it has been backing up there for five days so far - all the time stating Time remaining 5 seconds. It is now in a cleanup mode. I have been reading about various bugs concerning Time Machine and wonder if there is a fix I can carry out so that I can use the original external hard drive again.

Stop the backup. Boot in safe mode and log in. Note: If FileVault is enabled, or if a firmware password is set, or if the boot volume is a software RAID, you can’t do this. Ask for further instructions.
Safe mode is much slower to boot and run than normal, and some things won’t work at all, including Wi-Fi on certain iMacs. The next normal boot may also be somewhat slow.
The login screen appears even if you usually log in automatically. You must know your login password in order to log in. If you’ve forgotten the password, you will need to reset it before you begin. Test while in safe mode. Same problem? After testing, reboot as usual (i.e., not in safe mode) and verify that you still have the problem. Post the results of the test.

Time Machine won't back up external drive to Time Capsule

I recently got a Time Capsule, and successfully set it up to back up my iMac's primary drive, but for some reason Time Machine won't back up my external drive to the Time Capsule.
I removed the external drive from the exclusion list in System Preferences > Time Machine > Options, and from what I've read this should be sufficient to make Time Machine back up the drive.
The external drive is connected to my iMac via Thunderbolt > Thunderbolt-to-Firewire adaptor > Firewire 800 input, and the Time Capsule is connected via Ethernet to my LAN.
Since I'm using Ethernet, I've disabled Wi-Fi on the Time Capusule by going to AirPort Utility > My Time Capsule > Edit > Wireless > Network Mode > Off.
The reason I believe the external drive is not being backed up is because when I click the Time Machine icon in the upper-right status bar and choose "Enter Time Machine", none of the folders on external drive show any older versions.
Furthermore, when I click Finder > Time Machine Backups > Backups.backupdb, I can see only one sub-folder which has the name of my iMac's primary drive. I can't see any equivalent folder for my external drive.
Any idea what I'm doing wrong?

I don't see anything you have done wrong.. perhaps it does backup in a different way.
Load the widget.. A1 here... http://pondini.org/TM/Troubleshooting.html
That will allow you to track the log of TM to see what it is doing.
I would also try rebooting the computer.. exclude the drive again.. reboot.. and remove the exclusion.
You should be able to check the actual settings of TM in plist file.
And you can do a full reset of TM as well.. See A4. Check what is in the file. Pondini lists the location for you.
Nothing surprises me with Mountain Lion ...!!

Time Machine Didn't Back Up

I have two hard drives that are both 2 Terrabytes. One is the main and the other is the Time Machine backup.
I just accidentally overwrote a Flash FLA file, so I selected it and ran Time Machine. There is no backup of this file even though it's on the main hard drive and Time Machine has been backing up every hour for months.
In fact, if I select the folder and check out Time Machine, it doesn't have a backup of the entire folder all the way back to the first week of April.
Yes, Time Machine is backing up, I didn't turn it off.
Does anyone have an idea why Time Machine would arbitrarily decide to not back up this folder? What happens if it runs out of space on the backup hard drive?
Thank you!

OK, I just checked the preferences and the Main Hard drive was put on the 'don't back up' list somehow. Weird. I must have accidentally did that. I'm backing up NOW!!

Time Machine Stuck at "Backing up XXmb of XXgb"

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